Musings, by Rey
by Arallute
Summary: Rey reflects on her interrupted childhood and her new life with the Resistance. A first-person narrative.
1. Jakku

I was born in a thunderstorm. I grew up overnight.  
I played alone, I played on my own.  
I survived.

I wanted everything I never had, like the love that comes with light…

I found solace in the strangest place, way in the back of my mind.  
I saw my life in a stranger's face: it was mine.

I had a one-way ticket to a place where all the demons go,  
Where the wind don't change, and nothing in the ground can ever grow.  
No hope, just lies, and you're taught to cry in your pillow.  
But I survived.

I'm still breathing, I'm still breathing.

I'm alive. I'm alive. You took it all, but I'm still breathing.

(Sia, _Alive)_

* * *

I still don't remember much about my life Before: before I was ripped away from the protective embrace of my parents, my human and Wookiee uncles, and my doting big brother. Before I knew fear. Apparently, I had been a happy and confident child. My mother has holovids of me as a four year-old, and I can see it in my expression. _I am well-loved,_ my eyes said smugly. _I know where I belong. I can do anything._

I don't remember being that confident little girl; I just have wisps of memory. Fingering the twin yellow stripes on the side of a man's trousers as he laughed with friends. Curling up on a cold night under a purple and green bedspread. The moist feel of grass under my feet. Being picked up, impossibly high in the air, by a familiar furry presence. A thick beige carpet that I played upon. Hiding from party guests in the skirt of my mother's red velvet dress. An old, lived-in freighter which felt like home. Running my hand along brown braided hair. Being held tightly, being called "sweetheart." I knew these couldn't be memories from my life on Jakku. There was no grass there. No cold air. No affection. Nobody who'd call me anything except 'girl' or 'you.'

So I had only these thin fragments of memory. I clung to them, even though they were a shaky foundation upon which to build my ego. But they were all I had, after I was taken by the soldiers.

I didn't know they were First Order soldiers. It didn't really matter who they were. I just knew that one day, they blew our apartment's door down and started shooting. The next thing I remember was being in their ship, shivering alone in a cold cell. And that was the end of my carefree childhood.

The soldiers held me in that cell for months. I don't know how long. Long enough to convince me that my parents _wanted_ me to be there and wanted me to trust those men. Long enough to stop whispering "I want to go home" because I began to consider the cell my home. At first, the soldiers were mean to me, smacking me whenever I cried. I quickly learned to stop crying, to swallow my bitterness and remain blank-faced. So they stopped hitting me, and I thanked them for their kindness. They fed me every day, and I thanked them for the food. That's all I said after a while: please and thank you. After I'd worn the same green dress for weeks, they brought me another outfit, a simple beige dress with a belt. "Thank you very much," I said, and I meant it. I was so grateful whenever they came to my cell, so hungry for companionship. I craved attention, probably even more than ordinary children do, since I was left in solitary confinement for most of the day. The tiniest smile from one of them was enough to keep me going. I learned to appreciate them, to eagerly look forward to their visits, to believe whatever scraps of information they gave me. I had nothing else. Nothing. A bare metal cot, a food tray and fork, a toilet, two dirty dresses, three hairbands. Nothing else.

An old man came to see me in my cell one day. He had a terrible scar running around his bald head, and he radiated malevolence. I had never felt pure evil until then, and though I couldn't define it, it scared me. I shrank away from him, sat on my cot with my knees pressed up against my chin.

"That's the Solo girl?" he said to my friends the soldiers as he scrutinized me. Yes, I thought. I am solo. All alone. I had already forgotten my name, I suppose. The soldiers never called me by my name. Snoke—that was the evil man—talked quietly to them about me, drilling his beady eyes into my soul.

"She's too young to yet be of use," the scary man pronounced. "Throw her out. We'll come back for her later."

And so, without any more warning, they dumped me on a desert planet. Like garbage.

"If you're a good girl, and wait here patiently, your parents will come for you," my captor-fathers promised.

"I don't want my parents! I want to stay with you," I begged desperately. "Please keep me!" They had me brainwashed, that's for sure. All I wanted was to stay in that cell, with the soldiers' thrice-daily visits and their bland food on a metal tray. They repeatedly told me my parents had _given_ me to my captors; why would they now want me back?

"Well then, we'll come back for you, if you don't want your parents. But for now, you have to stay here, with this nice man." He gestured to a…man? some sort of creature…who didn't look nice at all. I began to cry angry tears, and looked around the desolate landscape. The heat was oppressive. No breeze, no greenery. The sand burned right through my dainty shoes. I hopped from foot to foot, bawling.

"Stop that, girl." The man-creature hit me in the face. "Don't waste water."

The soldiers—in my mind, my new parents, my whole world—retreated back into their shuttle without even a reassuring smile. I was abandoned in the sand.

"Come back!" I screamed at them imperiously, even after their shuttle lifted off. "Come back!"

"Quiet, girl!" the creature said, already annoyed and regretting the deal he'd made. This was Unkar Plutt, and I'd be working for him for the next fourteen years. He grabbed my skinny arm so tightly it left a bruise, and dragged me towards some sort of loosely-covered tent. "Jacobin," he gestured to a grizzled man, "you're complaining those old fingers of yours can't reach the smaller pieces of tech anymore? Here, I've got a pet for you, if you want her. Fifteen portions."

So for just fifteen rations of food, I was sold.

* * *

If I hadn't been sold to a grown-up, I suppose I would have died within a week. I was five, after all; I didn't know how to fend for myself, especially in such a harsh climate. Even adults who crashed on Jakku usually died quickly of thirst, heat stroke, starvation. Nothing grew in that sand, so farming was out of the question. The edible animals—steelpeckers, nightwatcher worms, even old happabores—were sparse, stringy, and hard to catch. So we all relied on those blasted ration packs left over from the war. And to get rations, we had to offer something saleable. The conflict between the Empire and Alliance might have ended long ago, but the Battle of Jakku was still being waged: people versus desert, scavenger versus scavenger. We all fought over the spoils of war.

Jacobin wasn't a bad sort. He taught me how to scavenge, how to find worthwhile ship parts amidst all the junk. We explored the _Inflictor,_ a downed Star Destroyer, stem to stern. That ship was my favorite hunting ground, since it was dark and relatively cool inside. We hiked deeper and deeper into the dunes, looking for remains of snub fighters that the others might have missed. Sometimes we got lucky, and found a little ship to cannibalize. A find like that could feed us for months. When we didn't find anything, we didn't eat. Or at least, I didn't eat. Jacobin fed himself first. But at least he didn't hit me much. Most of the young scavengers got beaten a lot more.

Now that I'm back at home, with the Resistance, people ask me how I could possibly have forgotten my family. 'Why didn't you just tell people who you were?' They don't get it. After months of First Order captivity, even _**I**_ didn't know who I was anymore. Within a few days of arriving on Jakku, my mind went into crisis mode. If I had been a droid, I would have shut down all but my most rudimentary functions. I ate and drank as much as possible. I fell asleep as soon as I lay down. I didn't waste energy on words or thoughts. And, as Unkar Plutt had warned me on that first day, I didn't waste water by crying. I never cried on Jakku. I knew that if I dared think about my charmed life Before, I would've been absolutely paralyzed. So I repressed it all. On Jakku, I pressed the reset button on my life. When Jacobin finally asked me what my name was, I couldn't even remember. The sweet girl with a name, that wasn't me. But I had a vague recollection of my nickname: Rey. I was pretty sure it wasn't my given name, but it was a moniker given to me by…someone I had loved, Before. So I became Rey. If my parents had come looking for their daughter, they wouldn't have found her. There was no more Breha Organa Solo, princess of Alderaan, daughter of a general and a senator. Just a tiny parasitic scavenger named Rey, her whole mind focused on survival and nothing else.


	2. My Real Home

After a few years as Jacobin's servant, I decided to go fend for myself. I didn't remember the details of my life Before, but I still maintained the deep-seated belief that I was worth something. Worth more than a slave, in any case. More princess than pet. And by age eight, I knew how to survive on Jakku. So when an AT-AT was abandoned by its previous resident, I moved in. I had to fight a teenager for it, and got quite bloodied in the attempt, but I had finally won a home of my own. Jacobin tried to lure me back a few times, but I preferred my independence, and he was too old and feeble to force me. So my servitude ended easily.

I decorated my room a little. I decided to keep track of time by scratching a mark for each day I spent waiting on Jakku. Putting the mark in the wall was my daily reward for surviving another day. Very satisfying. And to make my quarters slightly homier, I got flowers. I'd seen a bouquet of old dried flowers in someone's quarters on the _Inflictor._ So as an indulgence,I took them home and put them in a bit driver case—not quite a crystal vase, but close enough. I often wondered about the owner of those flowers. Whose room was that? Who gave her flowers? How did the giver even find flowers in a starship? I decided that an officer, enamored of a female colleague, had taken shore leave on some beautiful, flower-filled planet and he'd brought the bouquet back as a gift for her. And she'd kept them until the Battle of Jakku, which the couple had survived unharmed. I hoped they were living happily somewhere. I created a whole backstory for those flowers, my only decoration.

When I was ten, I discovered my best find ever: a downed X-wing with lots of working equipment, including a flight simulator which kept me occupied for hours. The Rebel pilot was long dead; I buried her in deep sand as a thank-you for the treasure she'd left me. But I saved a little of her orange flight-suit and made myself a doll. I had owned dolls once. I created stories for my doll, as I had for the flowers. Dolly had loads of exciting adventures on every planet listed in the flight simulator, exotic places with beautiful names that rolled off my tongue. Coruscant. Mustafar. Corellia. Kamino. Chandrila.

By that point in my life, I'd realized how thoroughly I'd been duped by the First Order soldiers as a five year-old, and was now hoping my parents would come find me. I'd been abducted for a reason, so I must have been valuable to someone, right? Nobody would steal an unwanted child and then just dump her on the say-so from a creepy old man. And I was sure that my family had loved me. I remembered how I'd told the soldiers, at the beginning, that I wanted to go home. And therefore, I reasoned, my parents must be looking for me. When they eventually did, I'd be able to show them how resourceful I'd been, how clever I was to survive, and how well-behaved I was to wait patiently for them. I tried to live in a way that would make my parents proud of me.

That's not exactly what happened, in the end. They didn't come for me. I left Jakku without them. But I met my father just after I flew into orbit. If I had only known he'd be waiting in space for me, I'd have left so much sooner! When my father saw me, well, I didn't recognize him, and he didn't tell me who he was. So I didn't get the reunion I wanted. But I did have a chance to explain to my father how I'd waited for my parents, how that hope had driven my whole existence. I think I made a good impression on him; Chewie assures me of that pretty often. He says my father was blown away by how well I had turned out. (On the _Falcon,_ Han had quietly cornered Chewbacca: "Have I finally gone crazy, or could that scavenger actually be my little girl?" Chewie said I smelled like Breha. But my father wasn't truly convinced until Maz confirmed it.)

I wish my father could've told me himself that he was proud of me. He died just two days after we met. And some of that two days' time, I wasn't even with him, having gotten myself captured by…the man we'll call Kylo Ren. My father came to rescue me, though. I love that fact. He barely knew me anymore, but he still risked his life to come and get me. He hadn't seen his wife in _years_ , yet right after he fell back into his princess's arms, he turned around again in order to charge into the arms of the enemy. For my sake. When he turned a corner on Starkiller Base and saw me, rifle in my hands and determination on my face, he looked pleased. "Run now, hug later," was all he said, but he said it with a warm smile and a wink.

I never got that hug later from my father.

"I didn't know there was this much green in the whole galaxy," I told him when we arrived on Takodana. I was almost in tears. He had given me an incredible gift by showing me the most beautiful place imaginable, and I will probably always associate him with Takodana. My father's spirit reminds me of that verdant planet: vibrant, comforting, teeming with warmth and complexity, the polar opposite of everything and everyone on Jakku.

I never saw my parents with each other. I would have liked to. It would have validated my existence, somehow, if I could say with certainty: _my parents adored each other. They created me in love._ But by the time I met my mother on D'Qar, my father was already gone, killed hours earlier by their own son. Chewbacca confided to me later that if she hadn't known I was on my way home to her, my mother would have shattered like glass that day. Chewie, knowing her well, didn't even try to approach her. Being neither a mother nor a wife, I really can't imagine how she felt. I can sense her nowadays, though. She shines in the Force, steadfastly resolute yet achingly sad. Whenever she looks in my direction, I can feel waves of love lapping my soul and a protective bubble locking around me like a ship's shields.

When I landed on D'Qar, my mother was right there. She held me fiercely, mutely. She didn't tell me we were related—Luke did, later—but she sure acted like a mother. She hugged me, she made me hot chocolate (highly recommended), and drew me a bath. Of course, she first had to explain what a bath was. It was the most outlandish waste of water I'd ever witnessed, even though it was nearly as enjoyable as the hot chocolate. Everything my mother does for me, or says to me, is an act of love. It's like she's taken all the pent-up emotion she had for my father and brother and transferred it all to me. As my father opened my curious mind up to a galaxy of possibilities, my mother opened my closed-off heart, showing me that it's possible to love someone limitlessly.

Two decades ago, a general of the Rebel Alliance wrote an autobiography. His name was Carlist Rieekan and he was from a planet called Alderaan. (That's my mother's home planet, which was deliberately destroyed before I was born.) It was the first book Poe recommended to me once I learned to read. Poe is a fan of history, especially Imperial-era history, but he knew I'd like this particular book because Rieekan knew the Alderaanian royal family well, and described my mother from childhood through adulthood. He wrote:

"One would assume that a child brought up in the lap of luxury would be either complacent, shallow, or conceited. Leia Organa was none of these. Oh, she could stamp her feet and be demanding…but she demanded justice, not personal favors. She demanded equality, not possessions. Her eyes burned with passion and intelligence. Nobody who knew Princess Leia ever thought she was going to grow up to be a spoiled queen, content to sit in her palace and hide from the galaxy's woes. This was a little girl who already knew to put others before herself."

I think I might have been that kind of girl, if I'd grown up with my family. But on Jakku, I couldn't focus much on anyone besides myself. I did try to fight small injustices I saw, and I'm proud of myself for that. I intervened when I saw anyone being beaten—I developed into a pretty good fighter with that quarterstaff of mine. I gave bits of bread to any children younger than I. And I took care of the old scavenger Simone, after sun, heat, and old age had ruined her mind. Simone sometimes forgot where she was and would end up cleaning the same little tool for hours if I didn't remind her to move on. She had been gentle to me when I was little, so I felt I owed her as much kindness as possible. But she was a warning to me, as well: I would not spend my whole life on that godforsaken sandball like she had.

Now that I have freedom, food and security, and therefore the luxury to devote myself to others, I'm trying to model myself on my mother's values. I re-read the passages from Rieekan's book often, to remind myself what sort of woman I strive to be. When she asked me if I'd like to learn the ways of the Jedi, it was an easy answer. The Jedi served the peoples of the galaxy more selflessly than anyone else. Of course I would become one of them. And being a Jedi, I hope, will allow me to better serve her Resistance. As Maz Kanata told me, I am obligated to join "the only fight that matters": the one against evil.

And so I only spent a few days with my secret mother before leaving her again. I took my father's beloved ship—my inheritance—and flew off to the watery planet Ahch-To, learn how to be a Jedi from the legendary Luke Skywalker. That's when I finally was given the complete story about my childhood, my abduction, my parentage. On Ahch-To, in the midst of all that lush greenery and raging ocean, Master Luke explained my whole life to me, clearing away the cobwebs and rooting me. Now I know my place in the galaxy.


	3. Finn and Poe

On Jakku, I was always more intrigued by the visitors—tourists, crashed pilots, damaged ships—than by the residents who surrounded me. I was particularly fascinated by the families: how the parents kept a watchful eye on their children, how they touched their child's arm protectively or patted a head in admiration. I wanted love so badly. I craved any sort of affection—a friendly touch, a kind word—but family is what I longed for most of all. "My family will come back," I repeated to myself daily, and to BB-8 when I first met him. Not just my mother; I wanted my whole family back.

When Finn arrived, drinking stale water out of a happabore trough like an idiot…well, my life changed. TIE Fighters showed up and Finn grabbed my hand, firmly but gently. Protectively. Not used to such a display, I told him to stop. But he took my hand. When we got blown to the ground by an explosion, he got up, ran to me, and straight away asked, "Are you all right?" I just stared blankly at him for a moment. He was more concerned with _my_ well-being than with his own. It was a first for me. Nobody had ever asked me how I was. Nobody had ever cared if I was 'all right.' Finn did so, though—right in the middle of a First Order invasion. He took my hand twice.

Finn was kidnapped as a child, as I was, so we are both searching for belonging. That's probably why we bonded so tightly, so quickly. We escaped our childhood prisons at the same time—him from First Order service, me from Jakku—and joined the Resistance together. We found a new purpose in life. But we also have each other to lean on and to learn from. We both missed so much in our youths and always seem to be one step behind every joke, every nuanced reference to past events, every ordinary human interaction. We're really just beginners at any sort of relationship. Only together do we feel truly comfortable.

My feelings for Finn run deep. He's my new brother. I don't really remember having an actual brother, though Master Luke explained that I was indeed born with one. In adulthood, Ben is not proving to be a very good sibling. The first time I met him, he knocked me unconscious and kidnapped me. The second time, he tortured me, and the third, he attacked me with a lightsaber. Whilst we fought on Starkiller, he recognized me. I'm sure of that. He could have killed me; he didn't. He even said, in a moment of wonder, "It _is_ you." And I saw with absolute clarity that he knew more about me than I knew of myself. So maybe I love Finn because I want to replace that fraternal bond I should have had with Ben. Unlike my traitorous, murderous brother, Finn is worthy of my love and trust. I can feel his affection for me, unwaveringly. He takes care of me, protects me, admires me, and I do the same for him.

And then there's Poe Dameron. I definitely do not see _that_ man as a surrogate brother. When I first laid eyes on him, in D'Qar's hanger, I felt a spark in my heart, as if I had accidentally touched a live current. Startled by my own reaction, I didn't talk much to him then. A few stumbling words, then I darted away. After training with Master Luke and returning to the Resistance base, though, I screwed up enough courage to approach Poe. I couldn't avoid him forever; he's Finn's best friend. His presence in the Force is luminous, as verdant as the fragrant trees of Ahch-To and just as intoxicating. And somehow…somehow, he likes me. Everything about him is gentle, I suppose because he's aware how nervous I initially was with him. He speaks softly to me, mouth always curved up in a smile, and he touches me often but lightly. His brown eyes bore into me in a way that makes my insides flip over.

Poe was quick to find the two subjects I didn't mind discussing with him, or rather, the two subjects that didn't make me too nervous to find my words properly: flying ships and our friend Finn. For the first month, ships and Finn were almost all we talked about together. Whilst I had been practicing on my flight simulator on desert evenings, Poe was out flying real ships in real battles. He's a good storyteller, and can entertain Finn and me endlessly with anecdotes. But Finn doesn't care about ship specs and doesn't get joy out of piloting. That's something just Poe and I share, so that's what our first private conversations centered around.

It's funny how quickly I adapted to my new life and how quickly my focus changed. After just a few weeks 'home' with the Resistance, I had completely left my survival mode behind, and had, for the first time, shifted towards the pursuit of what I _wanted_ rather than needed. What I wanted—to my surprise and even bewilderment—was Poe. My days may have been crammed with Jedi practice with Master Luke, flying lessons, lectures on history and politics, and building friendships, but my nights were quiet, empty, always sort of a void after such busy days. I had love from my mother and Finn, Luke and Chewie, and a bit of admiration from the Resistance pilots, but I still craved something deeper. It took me some time to figure out what, exactly. Not only time, but opportunity: a crash landing with Poe on an empty planet. We ended up taking refuge from a rainstorm in a tent, and the sight of him shirtless in a sleeping bag…it awoke something in me that had previously been dormant, and I just threw myself at him. I think it surprised me even more than it did Poe. Still, he knew what I was trying to do (which was good, since I actually had no idea what I was doing), and handled me with such gentle tenderness that I felt, and still feel, completely consecrated to him.

"Don't lose your heart too quickly, Brey," my mother warned me a week later.

Easier said than done. When I asked her if she'd had lots of boyfriends before my father, and if she'd fallen in love slowly and reasonably, she lifted her eyebrows and smiled lopsidedly, as she always does when thinking about her husband. "No, to both questions," she admitted. "I can't remember a time when I wasn't in love with Han. And there was very little in our relationship that was 'reasonable.' "

"Well, then," I said smugly, "case closed." I don't yet know if Poe Dameron is the love of my life, the partner I'll always have. But I must admit, I like the idea of my parents being meant for each other, destined to always be in love even when separated by distance or war or death. And I'd like that for myself as well.

My father is omnipresent, even though he's not physically here with us. My mother is still in love with him; I hear her sobbing in her room, mistakenly using the present tense when she talks about him, moaning his name in her sleep. I assume my brother also thinks of our father often, with pain and enormous regret, as he's the one who ran him through with a saber. I do hope Ben is tormented by nightmares of that act even more than my mother is. And I hope the knowledge of what he did just eats away at his soul, so that he eventually renounces the path of the Sith and returns to us. My uncle thinks that might happen; Ben was trying to complete his journey to the Dark Side through patricide, but perhaps the plan will backfire, and Ben's love for his father will instead shock him into coming back into the Light. Then my father's death would have had purpose.

Uncle Luke assures me that my father would have done anything for his children, including dying willingly. Han went to Starkiller Base with three goals, Master Luke says: to destroy the weapon that could murder millions, including his beloved wife; to rescue me from the First Order's imprisonment; and to bring Ben back into the fold. "He never failed at a mission," Luke said confidently, and therefore my father must have achieved all three goals. That's the only way that his death makes any sense to my uncle. He's wracked with guilt and grief about it, so he needs to put a positive spin on it, I suppose.

My father and uncle were best friends, with my mother the common link they shared. I like the symmetry of that. Finn, Poe and I are a similar trio with a similar bond. I always feel my strongest when I'm with the two of them, but I am terrified of what would happen to us if one of us were to die. Look at my mother and Master Luke, still mourning Han. They're like a Star Destroyer which has lost one of its three engines. Rudderless, careening in all directions. Demolished.

Love involves vulnerability, my mother reminds me whenever I bicker with Poe. That's a topic we argue about a lot: vulnerability. He wants me to open up to him more than I do, more than I'm capable of. It's just so hard for me to lower my shields. (Mother claims that both she and my father used to have the same problem. I doubt it.) Poe and I love each other, I'm certain of that. I also know that he would love me more deeply if I could just share more of my feelings and fears with him. But I hold back. What if he were to die? What would I do?

* * *

I put protective armor around my heart when I was five, and I'm loathe to remove it all. Now you understand why, don't you, Poe? I've been writing this all down for you, to explain my train of thought. I loved my family as a little girl, and I lost them. Then I trusted my captor-fathers, and they betrayed me. I didn't have a childhood like yours, with loads of affection and encouragement. I feel that now, but…I knew my father for just two days, and that was long enough for his death to rock me to my core. If I were to lose anyone else, I'm afraid of what it might do. What I might do. My grandfather lost his wife and his best friend, and look what happened to him. Ben lost his little sister and, because of that, our family's cohesion, and look what happened to him. My uncle and mother have come very close to falling to the Dark Side as well. All because they _loved._ The Jedi Order completely forbade love, and the Skywalker family is one big multi-generational example of the masters' reason for that ban. So I need to guard my heart, at least a little. Please be patient with me.

Love, Rey


End file.
